Decisions of Della Duck
by Velgamidragon
Summary: COMPLETED. Pre-season 2. Della Duck. Sister of Donald, niece of Scrooge, and mother of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. She was young and made mistakes. She was active and restless. She made her choices and each one had a consequence. The last one just turned out to be fatal.
1. 180 Degrees

**Author's Note: Yes, I am in love with the new DuckTales reboot and yes, I spend way too much time thinking about this family. After I finished season 1, my goal was to get this done BEFORE season 2 began (and inevitably did something to make this non-canon). This is my personal take on how Della's relationship with her kids may have started out and how she may have justified some of her actions that seem rather selfish, despite being a good person. So without further ado, here's the duck family angst that nobody asked for.**

 **Disclaimer: Disney owns DuckTales and I'm just playing around with some ideas I have before the canon has the chance to say 'Nope, that's not canon' to me yet.**

* * *

 **Decisions of Della Duck**

180 Degrees

Pain. Raw, agonizing pain seared through Della Duck's head and heart as she breathed heavily through her clenched teeth. Her eyes were narrowed hatefully at the front door she'd just slammed shut and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. It was night out, but not late yet, and the only other sound apart from her heavy breathing came from the pounding rain outside. She couldn't hear any of it. The only thing she could hear was the blood pounding furiously in her ears. How? _How_ had she let this happen?! She was Della Duck, a seasoned adventurer and niece to the richest duck in the world, Scrooge McDuck. She'd bested pirates, deathtraps, magical curses, and mechanical menaces, and always come out on top hardly the worse for wear. How had she been so… so easily duped by that… _that_ …!

Della screamed in frustration and slammed her fist into the wall next to the door, pressing her forehead against it. She closed her eyes and the tears finally fell down her cheeks with a choked sob escaping her throat. She stood there crying against the wall for a few minutes before she made any attempt to try and recompose herself. It was a half-hearted effort and her mind was already racing in a panic. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn't do this alone, she knew _that_ much, but who to tell? Her parents had passed away (1), she wasn't _that_ close to her grandparents (and they were unreachable anyway), and Donald would be too angry to be useful. Mind, he'd be angry on her behalf, but it wasn't what she needed right now. There was really only one person she could talk to. She just hoped that he wasn't out adventuring without her or otherwise busy. Della pulled out her cellphone, flipped it open (2), dialed the number for Scrooge's personal line, and prayed to everything he valued that she didn't get this voicemail.

Her prayers were answered. _"Good evening, Della. Everything alright, lass?"_ Scrooge asked, sounding pleasantly surprised.

Della's breath hitched in her throat and made it hard for her to talk. "Uncle Scrooge, please come get me."

The light tone was immediately replaced by diamond hardness with her uncle's next words. _"Della, where are you right now?"_ It was a tone that promised dire revenge against anyone who had dared to go after one of his family members.

"I'm at home. I'm not captured or anything, just… I'm in trouble and I can't tell Donald…" she explained vaguely. This was not something to convey over the phone.

" _Alright, hang tight, lass. I'll be there soon,"_ Scrooge reassured her. _"Do you want me to stay on the line with you?"_

Della nearly smiled. "You're offering to spend extra money on a phone call? I'm touched, Uncle, but I'll be alright in the interim."

He muttered something that sounded like 'Cheaper these days than ten years ago' (3), but then said more audibly _, "Okay, Della. I'm on my way now. I'll be arriving in about fifteen minutes or less."_

With those parting words, Scrooge hung up and so did she, but without the phone to distract her, the memories and her own hurt feelings rushed to the forefront and she shut her eyes tight against them. She couldn't think about it right now. If she did, she would lose it, and she had to wait until she was in a safe place before she could do that.

After a seemingly-interminable wait, Della heard a sharp knock on her apartment door and she threw it open. Her Uncle Scrooge stood there on her doorstep looking wet and worried in the rain. "I'm here, Della."

The young aviator bit her lower beak and threw herself at him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she buried her face into his shoulder, but _still_ refused to cry just yet. "Home," she whimpered and somehow, despite the rain and her voice being muffled in his coat, he heard her.

"Right away," Scrooge answered and led her out with an arm around her shoulders after she let go of his neck.

He directed her to the helicopter waiting in the parking lot out front and helped her inside. Most of the time whenever aircraft was involved, Della always insisted on being the pilot. Right now, she was more than happy to let her uncle do the flying (3). She wrapped her arms around her waist and glazed blankly out the windows as they helicopter slowly rose into the dark rainy sky. She took everything in with a detached sense of numbness. The only conscious thought she really had was that at least there was no lightning. That would definitely make flying harder in this weather and she didn't need Uncle Scrooge's piloting skills put to the test like that right now. Della was startled back to awareness when she felt a hand on her shoulder and saw that they had landed at McDuck Manor. She climbed out and Scrooge took her right to the front door of the mansion.

He opened the front door for her and they were halfway to the living room when she heard Mrs. Beakley gasp, "Oh dear, what happened?"

"Bentina, can you fetch a thick blanket and something warm for Della to drink?" Scrooge said.

"Right away, sir," Mrs. Beakley said and she disappeared into the kitchen.

Scrooge took her into the living room and set her down in her favorite comfy armchair. Neither of them cared that she was getting it wet. He then pulled over an old wooden chair leaning against the wall and placed it right in front of her. When he sat down on it, their knees were nearly touching.

"Okay Della, you're home and safe. Do you want me to call Donald and let him know you're alright?"

Della shook her head violently. "He doesn't know anything's up. He'll just freak out if you tell him."

"He'll freak out worse if he drops by your apartment and you're not home," Scrooge pointed out.

He had her there. "Fine, but I don't want to see him right now."

Scrooge nodded as he withdrew his cellphone from his red coat and dialed her older twin's number. After a long moment, he said, "Hey Donald, it's your Uncle Scrooge. In case you were thinking of paying your sister an unplanned visit, _don't_ because she's staying at the mansion right now. She's safe and unharmed, but she also, quote, doesn't want to see you right now, unquote, and I'm pretty sure it's not because she's mad at you. I'll look after her. Take care, lad."

By the time Scrooge had finished leaving the message and put his phone away, Mrs. Beakley had arrived with the blanket and a steaming mug of something that smelled like tea. The housekeeper gave her the cup (it _was_ tea, her favorite black raspberry to be specific) and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, tucking it in various places with expert skill to prevent it from slipping off and provide maximum comfort. Had motherhood taught her that or was it just in her nature?

"Thank you, Mrs. Beakley," Della muttered quietly.

"You're very welcome, dear. Is there anything else I can get you to make you more comfortable?" Mrs. Beakley asked her gently.

Della very nearly blushed out of embarrassment and ducked her head down to stare at her drink as she muttered, "A hug?"

Even with her eyes fixed intently on her tea, she saw the two aged ducks glance at each other worriedly in her peripheral vision. She loved her family dearly and was demonstrably affectionate, but she just always gave hugs, whether they were wanted or not. She never _asked_ for them and never in such a timid manner either, but then she felt Mrs. Beakley's strong-muscled arms wrap around her and hold her tight, her massive warmth already seeping into her through the blanket. Such a description was generally more appropriate for a man than a woman, but Della was only too happy for such a large, full-bodied hug to come from another woman. She felt safe and untouchable within her arms, and for the first time ever, she wondered if that was how Mrs. Beakley's daughter had felt growing up. It was a wonderful feeling.

Mrs. Beakley eventually pulled away and Della thanked her again. Mrs. Beakley nodded, offered her anything else she needed while she was there, and left the living room. In the silence that immediately followed, Della drank some of the tea and felt the warmth seeping into her chest, but now there was nothing to distract her from the gaping pit of despair she'd been warding off just over half an hour now. She was physically safe, she was with family, everyone was aware of her location, and she had ready access to various resources and creature comforts. The only thing left now was… the _reason_ she was here…

And Uncle Scrooge decided to jump right into the matter, "Della, what happened, lass? And don't you _dare_ tell me you're alright, because we both know you're not."

She had to tell him. She didn't _want_ to tell him. She _needed_ to tell him. Her beak seemed glued shut.

Sensing that she wasn't inclined to speak just yet, Scrooge said, "Were you hurt physically?"

Della shook her head.

"Mentally and/or emotionally?"

She swallowed and nodded.

"Se-?"

"-No," she cut him off with a shake of her head before he could finish that thought. She heard the relieved exhale and saw some of the tension slip out of his bony frame. Yes, she was hurt, badly even, but it was not the worst-case scenario he had begun envisioning. Della took another sip of her tea, using it as liquid courage without the involvement of alcohol, and said, "Uncle Scrooge, do you love me?"

Scrooge looked taken aback. "Of course, I do! You know that!"

"Even if I screwed up in a major life-changing kind of way?"

He reached out to grab her shoulders, looking downright alarmed. "Lass, what could you have possibly done that you would think I'd no longer love you?"

Here, Della averted her eyes and fidgeted with the handle of the mug. "… I'm with egg," she whispered.

A heavy silence descended between uncle and niece following her words. She was a duck and once a female duck reached maturity, she would lay many eggs in her lifetime that would never hatch into ducklings. As such, an adult female duck only ever said those words, 'with egg', when her eggs were fertile. It was obvious early on when they were. Grandma Duck had told her that within two weeks, fertile eggs were much heavier than the infertile ones.

Even if Scrooge hadn't had sisters, he'd been around on this planet long enough to understand the nuances of her wording. He took her tea mug from her hands and set it on the table next to her. "Oh, Della, come here, dear," he said gently as he leaned forward and wrapped his thin, wiry arms around her blanket-cocooned body. "I may have hatched in 1867 in poor, rural Scotland, but this is 2006 urban America. The world has changed greatly since then, some of it for the better, and I don't love you any less for being egg gravid out of wedlock. Is that what you were worried about?"

Della was too choked with emotion to speak, so she nuzzled into her uncle's chest in affirmation.

"Two weeks?" he guessed. When she looked up at him in surprise, he gave her a sheepish smile. "That's what your mother said about the difference in eggs once I was back on speaking terms with her."

That was right. She'd nearly forgotten that before she and Donald had been dropped off at Scrooge's mansion when they were ten years old, Uncle Scrooge had been a prickly, reclusive old man that hadn't talked to the family in decades, and nobody had been keen to try and reach out to him either. Della no longer remembered the circumstances of _why_ or _how_ she and Donald had ended up with their miserly uncle as a babysitter for a couple hours, but it had ended up being the _best_ couple of hours _ever!_ Scrooge had become such a large and important figure in her life that she couldn't even imagine it without him.

His slight smile faded and his brow furrowed in consternation. "And… do I know the father?"

She had to think about that one. "He was my most recent boyfriend. Did I ever introduce you to Billard Shelldon?"

Now Scrooge was the one thinking. "Maybe…?" he said at last. "Was he the health nut who insisted ducks should only eat greens and worms?"

"No, that was Jerry. Ten months ago. Bill was in college working on his social science degree. He usually wore a sweater vest and his hair was long, about shoulder length, with his bangs half-covering one of his eyes-"

"Oh, aye, I remember him now!" Scrooge interrupted suddenly and looked annoyed. "He was that lazy deadbeat bumming off his folks' finances to pay his way into college without exerting _any_ effort into his own- wait…" he stopped mid-rant and stared critically down at her. "You said 'was' your boyfriend. How long exactly has he _been_ a 'was'?"

Della internally winced at the brutally-accurate summation. If only she'd been willing to listen early on, but they were at the crux of the matter now. And knowing her Uncle Scrooge, he had a fairly good idea of why she was here. It was time for her to be completely open without him all but dragging the truth out of her. Della pulled out of his hug and stared down at her hands now clasped together on her bony knees.

"Maybe we weren't being as careful as we should have, but as of yesterday, I was certain the egg was fertile. I honestly didn't know how he'd react, but the egg was his and I wasn't going to hide it, no matter the cost," Della admitted heavily. "I invited him to the apartment tonight for dinner expecting anything from unconditional acceptance of the egg to outright rejection of it, and everything in between."

"I take it he did reject your wee duckling then?" Scrooge asked and shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Della."

If _only_ it had been that simple. "Not at first, and this would be easier if he had," Della mumbled through gritted teeth and the tears that she'd been fighting back finally pricked at her eyes again. She didn't fight them anymore and now she just fought to keep talking coherently. "Bill was… _overjoyed_ when I told him. I could hardly believe it… I'd expected the worst and I got the best. He held me gently and told me how happy he was to be a father… That, yes, he hadn't expected this so soon, but it had always been his lifelong dream since he was a child, himself… He promised to be by my side to support me through this, to help me raise our child, and then he asked me to marry him…" The tears were flowing freely now and her voice cracked through choked sobs. "I was flattered… overwhelmed… and I rejected him. We'd already screwed up by having an unplanned kid; I didn't want to further compromise his future by tying him down and then him resenting me for it later… I didn't want him to marry me just because I was having his kid and I told him so… I thought I was doing the right thing… And that was when he panicked and got angry…"

Scrooge hissed fearfully and his hands were back on her shoulders again. "Della, I know you already answered me, but I must insist: did he lay a hand on you at all because if he did, so help me, I will smite him with every dollar I own and maybe even pay someone to curse him with the full wrath of Clan McDuck."

It wasn't funny. Nothing about this situation was funny and Scrooge was being completely serious, but Della burst out laughing in spite of herself. "No, he didn't. He really didn't," she reassured him, but then the laughter died in her throat and she shut her eyes tight. "but that was the moment he revealed his true colors. He was ecstatic to hear he was the father because if I married him, then he would have a chance at your fortune and never have to work a day in his life, but my rejection of his proposal caused him to freak out and slip up. You had him pegged right from the start, Uncle. A lazy, manipulative, money-leaching deadbeat is the father of my egg."

Della had finally run out of words to say, but not tears to shed and her final admission renewed their flow with vigor. She keeled forward until her body was completely bent over her thighs as pained sobs wracked through her form.

In the midst of her emotional turmoil, she felt a hand laid lightly on the top of her head and another gently stroked her back. "That may be true, but I'll make sure he never works in this town again," Scrooge said in a tone that was both low and dangerous. "I _own_ all of Duckburg. I'll ruin him, run him out, and strip away all the legal rights he may have to you and your kids, and the rest of the family through you. I won't let him get away with hurting you again and this will be a warning to anyone else who dares think of trying to steal my fortune by sneaking in through my niece or nephew. They'll be sorry they ever crossed paths with me. Oh yes, very sorry indeed."

He meant every word he said because he was Scrooge McDuck and Della found that as terrifying as it was comforting. Maybe she would feel different later when her pain wasn't as fresh, but right now, she just couldn't bring herself to care about Billard's eventual fate. "Thank you, Uncle Scrooge," she said as she sat up wiping her eyes.

Scrooge sighed heavily, "There's really nothing to thank me for. I'd rather fix this instead, but damage control is all I can do."

Della laughed half-heartedly. "Maybe so, but _your_ idea of damage control is a lot more than what most people can do for even their daughters, and I'm just your niece."

"There's no 'just' about it, Della," he said with such warmth in his accented voice, she almost felt she could do away with the blanket still wrapped around her.

For the first time since she'd confirmed her pregnancy, Della felt unburdened, light-hearted joy. She didn't want to blow it out of proportion… but that simple sentence may be the closest she ever got to a confession from Uncle Scrooge that he thought of her as a daughter. So she wasn't going to overreact inappropriately to something he hadn't actually said… except that he was definitely getting the biggest hug ever. She did just that, wrapping her arms around his middle and squeezing him tightly, willing it to convey every drop of affection she felt for this crazy, amazing, cool, exciting, caring old man.

"Alright, alright, ease up there, lass. Don't want to accidentally break these old bones of mine, now do we?" Scrooge teased.

"Ha! I'll only believe you're old when you retire from adventuring," Della challenged back, and both of them laughed at such an absurd notion.

"Well, I'm not sending you back to your apartment, so you're free to spend the night here for however long you need. I'm sure Mrs. Beakley's already been at work tidying up your old room."

"Great! I'll go see if she needs help," Della said as she shrugged the blanket off and downed the last of her tea in one gulp. She took a few steps in the direction of the stairs to the bedrooms, paused, doubled back, and kissed Uncle Scrooge on the cheek. "Thanks again, Uncle. And goodnight."

"Aye, goodnight, Della," Scrooge said with a soft smile and Della completed her retreat from the room.

As soon as Della left the living room, Scrooge's cellphone rang and when he looked at the number calling, he recognized it was Donald. "I told the lad what was going on so he wouldn't panic, and now he's calling me in a panic," he groaned and answered his nephew's call.

* * *

 _Lots of theories abound on who Huey, Dewey, and Louie's dad is and with good reason. The biggest thing to consider is that yes, nobody ever mentions the dad, but unlike with Della, Huey, Dewey, and Louie don't seem even the least bit curious about who their dad is. Throughout season one, Dewey puts in all of this effort to find out what happened to their mom, his brothers are upset with him for keeping what he's learned a secret, and all three of them are extremely upset with Scrooge for playing a part in their mom not being a part of their lives. But their dad? With all of this mom-secret-searching going on, it's natural to think that their dad would be a subject of interest too, but no. His existence isn't even suggested, as if they could care less that they had a biological dad or not. This tells me that whether their dad is physically dead or alive, he's dead to the family, which means Huey, Dewey, and Louie were probably accidental babies and that informed how I wanted to portray Della in this fic._

 _I kinda let it run away from a little at the end with the parental fluff. I just love seeing Scrooge taking on a parental role and I figure Della and Donald were the first ones to get him to open up into that role in the DuckTales 2017 universe, and he definitely has a major soft spot for Della. Losing her caused him to go nearly bankrupt, estrange him from the rest of his family (including Della's sons) for ten years, and do everything to hide her very existence except for a single secret room in the library of the Money Bin that I can only describe as a **shrine** he had built entirely dedicated to her memory. Oh yeah. Don't even try to tell me that losing Della didn't break him._

 _(1) I have no freaking clue if Hortense and Quackmore are still alive in the series or, if they're not, when they died, so I'm just presuming that Della's and Donald's parents are both dead by the time this story takes place._

 _(2) I don't remember when smartphones started being commonplace items, but I remember that fliphones were still pretty common back in 2007, so it's not unreasonable to assume that's probably what Della had. I'm highly-amused that Scrooge still uses one in 2017 (though I can't blame him. I only upgraded to a smartphone from my old fliphone in 2016 because I needed a better texting feature and picture resolution for my job, otherwise I'd still be using a fliphone)._

 _(3) Not sure when Duckworth died, but I doubt he would have been flying helicopters anyway. Regardless, I'm pretty sure Launchpad wasn't working for Scrooge at the time (and he definitely wouldn't have been flying the helicopter anyway because Scrooge had no idea Launchpad was a pilot in the pilot episode of season one)._


	2. Knife's Edge

Knife's Edge

To say that Della was bored was, in her estimation, a severe understatement. She was mind-numbingly bored to death out of her freaking skull and even worse than being bored, she was restless. She'd read that it was normal for nesting mothers to feel that way, especially first-timers, but Della was also pretty sure most birds didn't have twitchy, reckless urges to abandon the next in favor of joyriding in a biplane through the Amazon rainforest seeking dangerous, treasure-filled, booby-trapped temples.

Yeah, she was pretty sure that wasn't normal.

She understood and agreed with the need to be landbound and not put herself in unnecessary danger when the eggs were still growing inside her body. She didn't want to take the risk of something going wrong and her ducklings not developing properly, but did she have to continue to be so careful _after_ the eggs were laid? This wasn't the era of her grandmother's or even her mother's youth when the women of the family were the primary caretakers of eggs and hatchlings. There were reliably-controlled incubators that could keep eggs at the proper temperature with ease, and as long as they were turned regularly, it didn't matter if that someone was the mother of the eggs or not (1).

Della might not have found her situation so unbearable if she actually had somebody in her family who shared her views on the matter and was willing to help her get out for some fun. Even if it was just taking her biplane out for an afternoon performing some low-key stunts, it would still get her out of the house! Donald didn't get it at all. When she'd vented out some of her frustration at not being able to go on adventures like him, he'd accused her of being an adrenaline junkie and not caring about what happened to her kids. The resulting argument had gotten ugly and she'd barely spoken a word to her twin since, an easy enough feat to do since he started hanging out with José and Panchito more frequently in New Quackmore south of Duckburg (2).

Uncle Scrooge was more sympathetic to her plight, but had never been in a position to appreciate just how badly she needed to do something that didn't involve staying still in one place and babysitting eggs. Honestly, the most excitement she got these days was putting the eggs in the stroller and walking around town with them on the off-chance that maybe one of the Beagle Boys would be stupid enough to mark her as an easy target now that she had vulnerable offspring. Uncle Scrooge chided her for risking the lives of her unhatched ducklings in such a way even though they both knew she really wasn't. Ma Beagle was too smart to let her boys make that mistake, probably knew Della's motive was to burn off energy, and was having fun thwarting her efforts to do so. Uncle Scrooge cautioned her to be patient and promised that she would get to go on adventures with him again soon. Of course, whenever she bitterly asked him when that would be, he had no concrete answer for her. These days, Della often felt that the only duck who'd truly get her would be Goldie O'Gilt, a fellow female adventurer and high-stakes risk-taker who was kinda-sorta family by virtue of being Uncle Scrooge's not-girlfriend. Then again, as far as Della knew, Goldie had never made the mistake of ending up egg gravid (there were no McDuck cousins, but she wasn't certain Goldie was a one-man woman either), so maybe that was enough of an indicator of how she felt about the possibility of kids interfering with her dangerous life style.

Beyond her need to be _doing_ something and to _get out_ and _have fun_ instead of staying _still_ in _one place_ doing _nothing_ , the thing Della hated the most about her situation was how resentful it was making her feel towards her own eggs. That was the worst and she felt horrible every time she noticed her thoughts turning in that direction. She had inherited the McDuck clan temper and was more than willing to dish it out where it was deserved. She could find a way to blame anyone in the world for her landbound imprisonment disguised as motherhood. Anyone at all _except_ her eggs. It wasn't _their_ fault their father was a lazy layabout or that she was a poor judge of character in boyfriends.

And yet, in spite of herself, when she was particularly wired or stressed out, she _did_ blame them: if she didn't have these eggs keeping her tied down, she'd be flying free through the sky once more, responsible for no one else's life but her own. Those were the days she genuinely hated herself and feared what kind of parent she would turn out to be. She shared this secret with no one. Her initial excitement at being a mom had been greatly reduced over time, especially after the fun stuff had been taken care of (the names would be April, May, and June (3) in that hatch order if they were girls and Hubert, Dewford, and Llewellyn if they were boys), and now the only thing that kept her flagging spirit alive was a little pet project she'd been working.

Della loved to fly. She'd known she wanted to be a pilot ever since she was a little girl. She'd traveled all over the world, but there was one frontier left to her that remained untouched: space. Modern space exploration was still nowhere near the level fantasized about in sci-fi novels, but it captured her imagination like nothing else. The images that space probes sent back to Earth of the planets and other cosmic bodies were awe-inspiring and when she felt optimistic about her future as a mother of three, she wanted her kids to have that same admiration. The thought of being able to travel the galaxy was her greatest dream and her kids, accidental and unplanned though they were, deserved her best self.

With nothing but time on her hands and an increasing desire to somehow prove to her unhatched children that she did _not_ hate them, no matter how frustrated she was, Della worked on designing a super rocket designed exclusively for true person-piloted space exploration, the likes of which had never been accomplished before. It was a fun and engaging project that she easily spent hours at a time working on. It was yet another secret she kept from the family, though she did let on to Uncle Scrooge one evening when she was feeling wistful that she wanted to give her kids the stars.

Unfortunately, her pet project left a paper trail and her brother was the one to find out about it. He was furious, and he blew up at her about how the rocket was too dangerous, especially with three kids on the way. That was the last straw. She was already mad at Donald from before, and this time she let him have it. The incoherent rage-quacking was enough to summon the eldest McDuck in the mansion to break up the verbal _and_ physical fight. Nothing was resolved, and Della only felt worse. Donald wouldn't apologize, and she refused to talk to him again until he did. On top of all that, one of the completed versions of her spaceship drawings had disappeared and for the life of her, she could not find it anywhere.

Even after a thorough search of her room, it hadn't turned up, and now Uncle Scrooge had started busying himself with some new secret project of his own. He was being extremely sneaky about it, so much so that most people wouldn't even notice, but she'd known him for half her life and she knew his tells. Granted, knowing he had a secret project in the works and discovering what it was were two completely different things.

With her design for the Spear of Selene already completed, there was nothing else to distract her mind from discovering the secret. She was like a bloodhound chasing the scent trail. Several times, she seriously considered breaking into his office for clues, but she never followed through. Not only did it feel wrong, but it would have detracted from the challenge she'd been presented. It fell in line with the family motto 'Ducks don't back down', or at least it _would_ have fallen in line if that was the motto. She _wanted_ that to be the family motto, but Donald thought it was stupid and they already had 'Family always helps family'. Whatever. _She_ thought it was cool.

The pieces slowly started coming together. Scrooge was building something. Something big and expensive and ground-breaking, and his beak was sealed on the matter. Even when she tried to lean on him a little for a hint, he kept quiet, but she could see he was amused with her efforts. As he turned away with a satisfied smirk, an epiphany came to her. Could it be…? Was Scrooge actually building the Spear of Selene? Working off this hunch, Della started investigating for evidence that would support her hypothesis.

She made no breakthroughs until Friday, April 13th. As per usual on such days, Donald's luck – atrocious at the best of times – had been so abysmal that he'd been hospitalized (4). Uncle Scrooge had been present and was still with him now. When Scrooge had informed her of Donald's condition, Della had instantly offered to join him in visiting Donald. She was still mad at him, but that wasn't going to stop her from worrying about him and wanting to offer emotional support. However, Scrooge had instead told her to just concentrate on her eggs (she slapped her hand over her bill in annoyance), but he'd also asked her to go into his study and pull out the file folder detailing the entirety of Donald's medical expenses to bring at her earliest convenience. Della resented being sidelined due to nesting responsibilities, but Scrooge had given her permission to go into his study. Into his filing cabinets. It was an opportunity she couldn't afford to pass up.

Della found her brother's medical file with ease and then scanned through the names of the other file folders. She found nothing labeled 'spaceship', 'aerospace', 'rocket', or 'Selene', but she hadn't really expected to. Uncle Scrooge's business ventures didn't typically include space-related expenses and it would have been too easy if there was one file exclusively dedicated to the Spear of Selene's construction. She _did_ find file folders labeled 'aircraft', 'projects', 'exploration', and her own file and laid them all out on the floor. One of these folders just had to contain what she was looking for.

There was nothing.

Nothing about the Spear of Selene in 'aircraft', 'exploration', or even in 'projects'. The lattermost had been her best bet, but no. Not even a sticky note hinted of the Spear of Selene's existence. Della was so frustrated, she could have picked up the filing cabinet and thrown it across the room. Of _course_ she couldn't find anything! No wonder Uncle Scrooge had so readily granted her access to the filing cabinets; the documents she was after were probably sealed away with his office records at the money bin! In a gesture uncannily like her twin's, she threw her aviator's hat on the ground and squashed it underfoot. That was it! No more Miss. Nice Duck. She was going to break into Scrooge's office and find those records of the Spear of Selene's construction if it was the last thing she did!

She stomped out of the study and was halfway to the front door when a shrill voice yelled, "Della Duck, get your tail feathers back here right this minute, young lady!" It was Mrs. Beakley.

Della groaned aloud and turned back into the interior of the mansion. She'd had _enough_ of her own _family_ telling her what she should and shouldn't be doing, she didn't need to hear it from her uncle's _housekeeper_ either! So, it was a furious, worked-up young pilot spoiling for a fight that burst into the salon Mrs. Beakley had called from, but the fight drained out of her in the face of cold dread when she saw her three eggs covered with blankets in their stroller and Mrs. Beakley standing behind them with her arms crossed and a disappointed glare on her face. The unspoken accusation that Della had been neglecting her eggs was as tangible as the nervous sweat beading on her brow. Silence filled the room. Della couldn't speak and Mrs. Beakley didn't.

At last, the elder woman said, "I get it."

Della frowned in confusion. Get what?

"Ever since you were a child, you have always been an active, free-spirited young lady testing your limits and challenging yourself to do better, to be better, and you are very much like your uncle in that respect. Anyone who _didn't_ know better would quite readily believe that you were Scrooge McDuck's daughter rather than his niece. You've inherited the McDuck Clan wanderlust and in your eyes, this little _mistake_ -" she gestured to the eggs and Della winced. "-of yours has clipped your wings and grounded you. I get it."

"You do?" Della repeated blankly.

Mrs. Beakley nodded slowly. "Before I started working as a housekeeper for Mr. McDuck, I was a secret agent-" Della's jaw dropped in shock (5). "-traveling all over the world, fighting criminals, maintaining order, and doing my part to protect civilians and nations. My work was fulfilling and I was happy. I was even lucky enough to meet the man who would become my husband and he supported my career as a secret agent. Not even marriage had hindered me and I naively thought nothing would, until the day I discovered I was with egg. I felt like my entire world had turned on its axis and I was no longer walking straight. Being a mother had not factored into my plans and I could no longer carry out my work as I once had. A new life was developing inside me and the risks I had freely taken with my own life were no longer viable options. Even after the egg was laid, we did not have the technology back then to adequately and safely control incubation temperatures, so full-time nest care usually fell to the mother. My husband, wonderful man that he was, promised to support whatever decision I made. I was very lucky; most men in those days wouldn't have given me the option, but I had to make a choice between my career and my egg. I could not pick both and choosing one would mean sacrificing the other. I chose my egg and retired from my career as a secret agent."

Up until that point, Della had been hanging onto Mrs. Beakley's every word with avid interest, but after saying she chose to give up her career for her egg, she crossed her own arms and looked away sulkily. "Good for you," she muttered bitterly.

"Hardly, Della," Mrs. Beakley said with a hard edge to her voice. "I had chosen my egg over my career, but I was bitter and frustrated with myself, my husband, _and_ my egg. There were many times during the nesting period when I felt like I had made the wrong choice, that I was just squandering my life away when I could instead be out there defeating villains and protecting the world as I used to. During those times, I reminded myself that I had made my decision, I could not take it back, and I was going to see it through to the end. It was not a comforting thought in the slightest, but it kept me going all the way to my daughter's hatchday. I confess it was easier after that if only because I no longer had the time or energy to think of might-have-beens and roads-not-traveled. Times have changed since I was a young mother. Medical technology has improved significantly, and gender roles are not as rigidly-defined as they once were, but you made the choice to go through with having these eggs and it's your responsibility to follow through with that commitment. Whether you're a good mother or a bad one, you will hold that title for the rest of your life. Now, with that perspective in mind, I believe you have some serious reflection to do about your behavior as of late," Mrs. Beakley said sternly and pushed the stroller to Della.

Della took it without a word and returned to her room. She unwrapped the eggs from the blankets one at a time just enough to stick a thermometer in there for a temperature check. Then she turned them over on their sides 180 degrees so the developing ducklings wouldn't get stuck to one side of their shells. After she'd finished, she dragged the stroller after her and sat down in the desk chair while she examined her eggs.

She'd laid them one right after the other on three consecutive days and she had no clue which one had been first, but that didn't mean she couldn't tell her eggs apart. They were similar in size, weight, and color, but she could already see the differences. One of the eggs was lighter than the other two and was the classic white egg color. She had a feeling that one would end up being the youngest and she worried about that one the most. Lighter eggs sometimes took longer to develop if they were going to hatch at all. She'd taken to calling it 'wild card' due to its lack of color and uncertain fate. Her other two eggs were heavier, but similar to each other in weight except that one had a slight pinkish hue and the other had a slight bluish hue. Different egg colors were not unheard of, but they were rare, and having two at the same time was even more incredible. One of those two would probably hatch first, so she'd been calling them April and Hubert alternately.

She caressed the top of each egg absent-mindedly and murmured, "Mrs. Beakley's right. I've been an awful mother so far. I've been so consumed by my own dreams that I've given nary a thought to yours. For better or worse, I'm the only mom you've got, and I shouldn't be so selfish anymore."

Mrs. Beakley's scolding had been the cold dose of reality she needed. What was she doing? Maybe what Scrooge was working on wasn't the Spear of Selene after all. It might not even have anything to do with her and she was just going mad with all the restless, pent-up energy that was telling her to get out there and make her blood sing for the fire of adventure! Was it _possible_ Uncle Scrooge was building the Spear of Selene? Absolutely, and it was equally possible he was building a theme park. Della had wanted it to be the Spear of Selene not because space was the last unexplored frontier, an adventure to rival her uncle's gold-prospecting days in the Klondike during the Gold Rush, but because she had seen it as her last-ditch attempt to escape adult responsibility for a little longer. Now she knew better. Her eggs were due to hatch sometime this week and there was no escaping that. For better or worse, she'd made her decision.

Remembering that she'd left a mess behind in her uncle's study, Della sighed and moved the eggs to the in-home incubator set up in her room before leaving to clean up the study. Once there, she gathered the papers strewn across the room and sorted them all into the correct folders, making sure to keep out Donald's medical expense history on Scrooge's behalf. She shoved all the folders into the filing cabinet in the correct order, but paused just as she was about to add her folder right in front of Donald's. She hadn't gotten around to opening her own folder the first time around when she was looking for evidence of the Spear of Selene's construction. She doubted there was anything in there. It was a project of her own design and if Uncle Scrooge was trying to keep it secret from her, he wouldn't have left the record of his finances in the folder with her name on it. Still, she was kinda curious about what kind of information Uncle Scrooge kept on her because she didn't have the expensive destructive mishaps that Donald did, so she shrugged and let the folder fall open.

Della gasped and her eyes widened. It was just a piece of scrap paper, like something torn out of a notepad, but the content written on it was monumental. There was no mistaking the outline of the spaceship nor the title in big words at the top that read 'The Spear of Selene'. It was her handwriting, but not her original drawing, just a photocopy. However, the list of dates off to the side were _not_ in her hand, but Scrooge's, and were penned in _after_ the photocopy was made. There were four dates and only the last one was circled, the date of April 15, 2007 which was two days away. Della's beak fell open in shock at her sudden comprehension. Scrooge _had_ been building the Spear of Selene and it would be finished on April 15th!

Just like that, Della found herself standing on a narrow bridge caught between two poles. On one end was the Spear of Selene, the ultimate achievement, her greatest dream, the promise of adventure built just for her, lying ready and waiting for her to climb aboard. On the other end was Donald, Mrs. Beakley, and her three eggs. The two adults were gazing at her with anger and disapproval respectively and her eggs were already rocking back and forth. Little cracks were appearing on their shells and she could hear their tiny voices cheeping at her from within. It was domesticity, staleness, responsibility, and her life revolving instead around the three new ones that she had already chosen to give a chance at existence. She looked from one end of the bridge to the other and back again, but Scrooge was nowhere to be found in the vast, surrounding blackness.

The choice that loomed before her had never felt more real than in that moment. Della looked down at the paper still in her hands and focused on the circled date. Her eggs were due to hatch this week… and the Spear of Selene would be finished in two days… She frowned to herself, then slipped the paper back into her folder just as she'd found it before replacing said folder into the filing cabinet where it belonged. The only thing she took with her from the study was the record of Donald's medical expenses and her heavy thoughts.

* * *

 _(1) Not so much reptile eggs, but bird eggs need to be turned regularly so that the developing chicks don't accidentally stick to one side of the shell on the inside. Also, I know in the show, we saw the eggs in a stroller without any kind of covering, but that wouldn't be **nearly** warm enough, so I figure they were probably only put in there on a temporary basis for transportation purposes._

 _(2) Just me making a small reference to The Legend of the Three Caballeros. I hope I'm spelling that right. Anyway, I liked that show, and I know they're going to show up in some capacity in season 2, so they get to be here before the canon can laugh at my attempts to write._

 _(3) Obviously, since I watched The Legend of the Three Caballeros, I know about April, May, and June being Daisy's nieces. Since Della was lost in space before her eggs even hatched (and I don't think it's possible to tell the sex of egg embryos while they're still developing in the egg), I wanted her to come up with the names and she would have had to have both boy and girls names until they hatched. I thought it would be a nice callback if Della came up with girl names that ended up belonging to the other pair of triplet ducklings._

 _ _(4) Since the DuckTales universe treats luck as a force of nature, it would not surprise me in the least if Donald's luck became even worse on Friday the 13ths.__

(5) In episode 2 of season 1, when Donald asked Mrs. Beakley how she knew so much stuff about electricity and she answered "I'm a spy", he didn't seem to know whether she was joking or not, which suggests that perhaps he (and Della by extension) never knew that Mrs. Beakley was Agent 22.

One more chapter left to go. You know what happens; it's a doozy.


	3. Consequence

Consequence

Della was so wired that the very second she heard her alarm clock ring, she slammed her hand down on the off button and then unplugged it from the wall for good measure. It was April 15th at 4 in the morning well before sunrise and she was wide awake. She silently got dressed in the dark and pulled out a folded piece of paper from her coat pocket. She unfolded it and read the words she'd written: Scrooge, I've taken the Spear of Selene. I'm sorry. – Della

She took a deep breath and then released it. She was just going to take the rocket on a quick orbital test run for a few hours. She'd probably be back within half a day and definitely shouldn't be gone much longer than that. There was nothing to worry about and besides, the rocket had been built for her, so it wasn't _really_ stealing if it was already hers. She was just leaving the note behind so that Scrooge and Donald didn't freak out and file a missing person report on her, never mind that neither of them would let her do this if they knew what she was up to.

As for _why_ she was sneaking out to take the ship on an early test run, well… Della glanced guiltily back at her eggs currently resting in the incubator. In a way, she was doing this for them as much as she was doing it for herself. The way she saw it, she needed to go on one more adventure as a last hurrah to get it all out of her system before she could fully devote herself to her kids and be the mom they deserved. She was not abandoning them. She was insistent on that point.

As if to reassure herself, Della walked over to the incubator and took them out, holding all three in her arms. She hugged them gently and whispered, "I'll be back soon, babies. Don't hatch before I get back and be good for your Uncle Donald and Great Uncle Scrooge while I'm gone, okay? Mama loves you, even though I'm doing a bad job of proving it right now. Everything will be better after I get back though, I promise."

She kissed the eggs and placed them all back in the incubator, then made her way to the other side of her room where the window stood. Della inched it open just enough for her to slip out and grabbed onto the rope dangling outside that she'd anchored earlier in preparation. Securing the rope around her waist, she wrapped the rest of it around her so that she could brace against it to close the window behind her. After that, she skillfully belayed herself all the way down to the ground and untied herself. She wouldn't be able to retrieve the rope easily, but by the time anyone noticed, she'd already be long out of the planet's atmosphere. Della ran down the steep hillside to the perimeter fence, debated whether to scale it or go through the front gate, decided on the former, and climbed the black metal bars, performing a back flip over the top and landing in a full crouch on the other side.

Now that she was beyond the property line, she had greater freedom of movement. She started making her way down south into the more active part of the city and kept her eyes peeled for a taxi. She'd been walking for nearly ten minutes when she finally spotted one and managed to wave it down.

"You sure are beginning the morning early, missy," the cab driver said by way of a conversation starter as Della got into the taxi.

"Indeed I am," she agreed brightly. "and I need you to take me all the way out to Duckburg's eastern city limits where the McDuck Warehouse is located. Don't worry, I can afford it," she reassured him, effectively silencing the driver's protest before he could even give it voice.

The ride was quiet, but Della preferred it that way for once. She had too much on her mind to consider engaging in dialogue with the taxi driver this time, but she gave him a good tip as compensation once he reached the Warehouse and dropped her off. Once the taxi was out of sight, Della ran around to the back and pulled out a rented moped she'd parked hidden between two of the smaller sheds. The taxi wouldn't take her out to where she needed to go, and it was too far away to walk if she wanted to beat Scrooge. Della started up the motor and wheeled the moped out onto the side of the road, still heading east. The landscape was drier and more mountainous like a desert in this part of Calisota, so there wasn't much land development going into expanding Duckburg's eastern border. Its barrenness made it the perfect place to set up anything from a missile testing field to a rocket launchpad, and that was exactly what Della was counting on.

Half an hour later down the empty stretch of road (it would have been quicker in a car, but a moped couldn't go that fast), she saw a tall, cylindrical tower with antennae on top that identified it as the control tower, and her beautiful drawing come to life sitting pointed upright on the launchpad. It was gorgeous, even better than she'd imagined, and it was painted bright red with Scrooge's mark, the letter 'S' written in gold as a dollar sign, on one of the wings. Della stared in awe momentarily at her creation, then glanced around for any sign that Scrooge had somehow arrived ahead of her despite no vehicles passing her on the road.

There was no sign of his limo present, so she pulled right up to the base of the control tower. The front door was locked naturally, and a quick glance told her Scrooge didn't put any of his fancy locks on it. She unclipped one of the hairpins in her hair hiding under her aviator's hat and bent it into a makeshift lockpick. Several frustrated grumblings later, the lock finally clicked and she was able to open the door. Della gave herself a congratulatory pat on the back and dragged the moped inside with her before closing and locking the door again. If Scrooge arrived at the control tower before she was done, she didn't want to tip him off to her presence early. Luckily, she managed to find a supply closet large enough to hold the moped and hide the evidence by sweeping away the dusty wheel tread and her own webbed prints. Now she was free to investigate the facility. She had to find the spacesuits and any other relevant supplies she may need, as well as leave her apology note somewhere Scrooge was likely to visit today when he came to check on the Spear of Selene.

Touring the tower, she ended up finding the spacesuits and supplies first and donned one with increasing giddiness. If Della was being completely honest with herself, she'd been feeling equally exhilarated and guilty all morning, but this was the first time all day that her excitement finally outpaced the sense that she was betraying her family, despite the fact that she was stealing this rocket _for_ her family. Hoping that her uncle wouldn't immediately notice one of the spacesuits was missing, Della put it on and continued her ascent up the tower to the control room at the top. The door wasn't locked, so she let herself in and then stopped. Even at a glance, she could tell the control room had been outfitted with high-tech, state-of-the-art equipment and a low whistle escaped her bill. Getting Uncle Scrooge to spend on something that didn't increase his income fell somewhere between Donald having an accident-free day and cousin Gladstone having an unlucky moment: _ridiculously_ rare, but not impossible. When he _did_ spend though, he sure went all out! Good thing too; skimping out on experimental space tech would be a bad move indeed.

She approached what looked like the main console and set her note for Scrooge upon it where he was bound to notice. Her task complete, Della turned on her heel and made for the exit, pausing momentarily for a backward glance at her apology note. Yes, it was visible from the doorway. It had to be enough. However, just as Della was about to leave, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye through the window and doubled back to get a better look. It was Scrooge's black limo approaching and leaving a dust cloud in its wake. Swearing under her breath, she dashed out of the control room and took the stairs back down to the ground floor where she bolted into the supply closet she'd hidden the moped. Here, she'd be able to hear him come in and wouldn't be at risk for running into him if he decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Wait. Did she lock the front door after she came in? Crap! She couldn't remember! It wouldn't matter if Scrooge never saw her if he thought someone had broken in! Wary of making too much noise, Della fast-walked like her life depended on it (a rather difficult feat in a spacesuit) and she hastily checked the door. She _had_ already locked it and now she heard approaching footsteps from just beyond the door. A quiet eep escaped her beak and Della all but ran back to her hiding place. Keys clinked, and the lock turned just as she closed the supply closet door behind her.

The control tower door opened, and she faintly heard her Scottish uncle humming happily, completely oblivious to his niece hiding only some thirty feet away in a broom closet. Della pressed her ear against the door and listened to his webbed feet and humming wander off to the right. There was a ding and the sound of elevator doors opening then closing, and then all was quiet once more. Della slumped against the door with a heavy sigh of relief. Scrooge was still unaware that anything was amiss. Not about to miss an opportunity to duck out, she abandoned her hiding place and slipped out the front. She made sure the door was unlocked this time because Scrooge had left it so.

Safely outside, she rounded the tower to the launchpad and made a beeline for her rocket. The predawn sunlight was just starting to crest over the horizon line and lighten the landscape. Surprisingly, there was already a ladder propped up against the rocket leading up to the entrance port, but Della was not one to question good fortune too strongly. She put the helmet on her head to free up her hands and began climbing the ladder. She was halfway up when the bang of a metal door being flung open caused her to flail and nearly overbalance. She managed to grab hold of the ladder with a relieved sigh, but then stiffened again when she remembered why she nearly fell in the first place. Della whipped her head around and saw, coming around the edge of the tower, her uncle wearing his own spacesuit and carrying what looked like a long beam under his arm. She froze utterly still and nervous sweat beaded on her forehead as she watched him come ever closer. She was dead. She was dead. She was _so_ dead! Scrooge was an adventurer, not a pilot. She hadn't counted on _him_ wanting to take the Spear of Selene out for a test flight! Della watched him like a hawk as he drew steadily nearer, waiting for the moment when he saw her perched on the ladder of an experimental rocket that she wasn't supposed to know about and wearing a spacesuit.

Except that moment didn't come.

Scrooge stopped walking still quite a distance away and he removed the beam out from under his arm. He bent a small strip away from it, then a second, and then bent the remaining part outward. It was only as he was turning it over that Della finally realized that the 'beam' was actually a tripod for a camera. He set it up on its legs and made some adjustments to the camera, then walked around to the other side. His arm stretched out once more to the camera and he stepped back, standing still with the helmet under his arm. After a few seconds of posing, the flash went off and Scrooge returned to the other side of the tripod. Apparently satisfied with how the picture turned out (and not seeing any nieces sneaking aboard), he collapsed the legs and carried the camera tripod back into the control tower. Della breathed easier once he'd disappeared from view and she quickly ascended the ladder before she had any more close calls with her favorite uncle.

As soon as she was safely inside the ship's belly, she pulled up the ladder and collapsed it to fit inside, then closed the hatch. Once that was accomplished, Della set about exploring the interior of the rocket, just as she did with any new aircraft she flew. She made mental notes of all the equipment, including the safety gear and emergency supplies, and then took herself to the command console at the front. She quickly familiarized herself with the layout and set herself in the pilot's seat to begin the pre-flight checks. The lights that were supposed to be on were, and the others that weren't, weren't. Everything was ship-shape and ready to fly! Without further ado, Della started up the ignition sequence. First, she felt her seat thrum and then heard the engines hum, the vibrations and the sound becoming more pronounced with every passing second. It wasn't long before her entire body shook in her seat and just as the engines roared their loudest, she felt herself moving up. The rocket was taking off and she was soaring up, up, _up_ into the sky, straight into the dawn-tinted clouds high above. Her beak split into a wide grin and she let out a whoop of laughter! She was doing it! She was going into space at last and her rocket was handling beautiful! Oh, she would definitely have to thank Uncle Scrooge for this wonderful gift when she made it back down to Earth!

Speak of the devil, the radio suddenly blared to life and Scrooge's voice echoed out of it sounding panic-stricken, _"Della! Della, are you there?! Can you hear me?! This is your Uncle Scrooge,_ _ **please**_ _answer-!"_

"Hey, hey, easy Uncle, I can hear you just fine. There's no need to panic," Della said quickly into the radio, trying to reassure him before he got too worked up.

Unfortunately, her timely response had no effect whatsoever on his temper. _"No need to panic, my tail feathers! What in blazes are you doing with that rocket, and how'd you even find out about it?!"_

"Um… I was bored and I have a bad habit of being nosey?" she offered with a sheepish grin.

" _Don't you get cute with me, lassie. You better turn that ship around right this minute and get back on the ground, or so help me, I'll-!"_ Scrooge growled.

"-You'll what? Ground me?" Della sassed back, feeling suddenly irritated. "I'm too old for the figurative kind of grounding and I was already being literally grounded, or why do you _think_ I'm taking _my_ spaceship out for a joyride while I still have _some_ vestiges of freedom left?! Besides, I've just left the atmosphere, so it'll be a little difficult to turn back 'right this minute'."

" _Is_ _ **that**_ _what this is about?!"_ Scrooge said hysterically. _"You felt too constrained so you decided to do the most_ _ **dangerous**_ _and_ _ **reckless**_ _thing you could possibly think of to be rebellious?!"_

" _No!_ That's not it at all!" Della shrieked in frustration. In a fit of controlled ire, she jabbed one of the buttons on the console that activated the video feed from the rocket to ground control. She'd been sitting on these feelings for months, but now they were all bubbling out of her control and if Uncle Scrooge was going to end up being the victim she lashed out at, she was darned well going to make sure she said it to his face. "I _told_ you and Donald I needed to get out and do something exciting! I was going stir-crazy just trying to egg-sit, but you wouldn't listen to me!"

" _Are we_ _ **seriously**_ _having this conversation right now?!"_

"When else are we gonna have it?!" Della retorted. "I'm not cut out to be the typical mom that's happy to sit on the eggs at home! I may not even be cut out to be a mom at all! I certainly didn't ask for this. I'm too young and irresponsible to be a parent trying to raise the next generation, but it's not my eggs' fault their dad's a deadbeat or that I decided to keep them anyway. But I can't just quit adventuring cold-turkey! Could _you_ do that, Uncle Scrooge? Or can you imagine Goldie doing that? Adventuring's in my blood and I wasn't ready to settle down yet, but here I am: out in space where I've always wanted to go, trying to soak up two decades worth of adventuring in a few hours before I have to give up the rest of my life to the three eggs waiting for me back home!"

By the time she had finished venting, she wished she could take off the helmet long enough to wipe away the tears were running unchecked down her bill. Scrooge was staring at her through the video feed with a stunned expression on his face. He closed his bill and readjusted his grip on the radio mic.

" _You're right, lass. I didn't listen and I'm sorry. I didn't know how strongly you viewed your impending parenthood as a form of imprisonment and I brushed you off instead of giving you the outlet you needed. You and Donald are the closest I've ever been to having kids of my own and my memories of being a child with my own parents are hardly adequate comparisons. I've been doing my best but well…"_ Uncle Scrooge fidgeted with the radio in his hands and then gave her a weak smile. _"… maybe this not-cut-out-for-parenting thing runs in the family after all."_

Della gave a half-hearted laugh. "Mom seemed pretty good at it from what I remember."

Uncle Scrooge snorted _, "Hortense must have stolen my share of the parenting traits then. Hey, maybe Donald has all of yours!"_

Della gaped at him half-amused, half-horrified, "Are you kidding me?! Between Donald's temper and his rotten luck, he can't even keep a stable job! Raising kids would be a recipe for disaster for him! Or them. Or _both_!"

They both chuckled briefly and Scrooge smiled warmly at her through the feed. _"For being my sister's daughter, you're a lot more like_ _ **me**_ _than I ever would have expected you to be, Della. There is no reason why you have to abandon of all your own hopes and dreams in order to be a mother to your ducklings. This is the 21_ _st_ _century; you don't have to be a stay-at-home mom and I'm certainly not expecting you to be. I love my fiery-spirited niece and trying to change yourself to match such a humdrum lifestyle would just suck the life out of you. You would be miserable, and two decades is too long to put your life on hold. I'll take you out adventuring soon, Della, once your eggs hatch and you've got your feet back under you again."_

"You promise, Uncle Scrooge?" she asked eagerly.

He grinned and nodded confidently. _"Aye, I do. I guarantee it in less than five years as soon as you're emotionally stable once more. You have the word of Scrooge McDuck! And now that we've cleared the air between us, I believe it's time for you to turn that rocket around and come back down to the ground, lassie."_

"Yes, Uncle Scrooge," Della said with an affectionate eyeroll. "But could I stay up here maybe a _little_ bit longer, like long enough to complete one orbit around the planet? It'd be a shame to have spent all that gas money to get up here only to drop right back down into the atmosphere without putting the Spear of Selene through her paces."

Scrooge mimicked her eyeroll. _"Fine, one orbit, lass, and then it's back to Earth with you."_

"Thanks, Uncle Scrooge!" Della chirped happily, and Scrooge shook his head in amusement.

While she was testing out the Spear of Selene's systems, Scrooge stayed on the line with her to talk for which she was grateful. _"So how did you find out I was building the Spear of Selene? I was very careful to never leaving anything concrete where you could find it."_

"Oh, you were, Uncle. I've been investigating ever since one of my drawings went missing several weeks ago, but I had no proof until last Friday when Donald was in the hospital. I stumbled upon a photocopy of the drawing in my folder in your filing cabinet with today's date circled," she said.

Scrooge swore, _"Curse me kilts; in the wake of Donald's issues, I completely forgot about that one. Well, way too late to do anything about it now. How's she handling by the way?"_

"She's perfect!" Della exclaimed. "Handles like a dream; the Spear of Selene is everything I could ever want in a rocket! I'm sorry I'll have to cut her maiden voyage so short."

" _Well, I was_ _ **going**_ _to give it to you on your kids' hatchday, but somebody jumped the gun on me,"_ Scrooge grumbled. _"You know Donald's going to be furious with you when he finds out about this."_

Della squawked in outrage, "Furious with _me_? He's gonna be furious with _you_ when he finds out you built this thing for me! You were there, you heard what he said when he found out about my drawing. He called me a reckless, selfish thrill addict-"

"-And you called him a lazy, paranoid, overreactive chicken."

"-and that I didn't care about what happened to my kids at all. Well, if he thinks it's _so_ easy to suddenly turn your life around 180 degrees in the complete opposite direction, then he's free to go ahead and try to raise my kids for me!"

Scrooge silently watched her for a moment and then said, _"You don't really mean that, Della."_

She exhaled heavily. "No, I don't, but he's mad enough at me that we're still not talking. I don't think he can get any madder than that and he'll only see this little escapade as justification that he's right about me."

" _Lass, you and Donald really need to talk – and I mean_ _ **actually**_ _talk, not fight each other – about what's been going on and how you've both been feeling. Motherhood is a huge life change that affects everyone in the family, not just the expecting parents apparently-"_ Della snorted in amusement. _"-and neither of you are handling it well. I didn't grow up with my younger sisters (1) the way you and Donald have, and my bond with them was not as close either. You two are more than just siblings and twins; you're each other's best friend and it's not natural for you two to be so closed off from one another. Can that be another thing you'll work on for me?"_

"Do you just want me to start a checklist of character traits I need to work on?" Della teased with a smirk.

" _Perish the thought!"_ Scrooge gasped dramatically and they both laughed. It felt good to laugh. Della had felt very little reason to do so lately.

It was in this manner that Della completed her single orbit around the Earth and she was just about to begin her descent preparations when an insistent beeping sound and red flashing lights from the console made her stop in alarm.

" _Della, what's going on?"_ Scrooge demanded.

"I don't know. There's something being picked up on the scanners, but I can't tell what. Something's interfering with the equipment," she said, trying not to panic.

" _Calm down, I'll see if I can find anything on my end."_

Scrooge's gaze averted from the screen to the instruments available to him in the control tower. She fiddled with her own while she waited, unable to remain idle in the face of the unknown.

Her uncle suddenly gasped and just as she opened her mouth to ask, he grabbed the radio mic and shouted _, "It's a cosmic storm coming your way fast! You've only got about two minutes before it's upon you!"_

"That's why my equipment's bugging out!" she exclaimed. "The electricity's causing the interference! Uncle Scrooge, what do I do?! There's no way I can clear the storm's path in two minutes and with my scanners on the fritz, I'm nearly blind up here!"

" _We have no choice; you're going to have to navigate the storm. The scanning equipment is working perfectly fine down here, so I can talk you through the hazards I'm alerted to. We can do this together, Della, just like we always have. I personally won't rest until you're back home, you hear? You mean the world to me and I won't let anything bad happen to you."_

Della could now see the front line of the cosmic storm bearing down on her. It didn't have a visible form so much as it had visible force. It was a moving mass of purplish-black galaxy clouds with stardust and the fragmented remains of space rocks interspersed with streaks of white lightning, or the cosmic equivalent. Her heart was pounding in terror, but she had never felt calmer. This was just like her other adventures with Uncle Scrooge, and this was just the sticky, life-threatening part that she had to overcome first. She'd always come out on top, hardly the worse for wear, and she would do it again; Uncle Scrooge would make sure of it.

She took a deep breath and exhaled, keeping her hands tight on the wheels. Then she looked into Scrooge's eyes through the video feed and said faintly, "I trust you."

It was the last peaceful moment between them because the cosmic storm arrived shortly after.

" _You've got something coming in above you at 50 degrees. Veer left to avoid it."_

"But I've got an incoming meteor on my left!"

" _There's a space large enough for you to slip between them if you also accelerate forward at a slight downward tilt."_

"Phwoo! That was a close call!"

" _Some electricity's charging up below you, but I think you're far enough away that you won't be affected."_

"Uncle Scrooge, I've got a pellet storm of meteorites coming my way. I can navigate my way through them just fine but keep an eye out for if any of those cosmic lightning bolts are coming my way."

" _Now hold on a minute-!"_

"Too late! I'm doing it!"

" _Would you just lis- Energy signatures charging up at two and eleven o'clock!"_

"Thanks for the heads-up!"

 _"Bless me bagpipes, don't ever do that again!"_

"Why? I merely maneuvered myself into a position where I avoided the lightning bolts by letting them collide with the incoming space rocks. I only did what was necessary."

" _The loop-the-loop was hardly_ _ **necessary!**_ _"_

"I just wanted to see if the Spear of Selene could even do it. You can't complain she's not getting a real workout."

" _My_ _ **heart's**_ _getting a real workout watching you! Can't you take it- another energy charge right on your six, but I think it's aiming downstream – a bit easier up there? I'm doing literally everything I can to keep you safe, so be more careful-!"_

"Whoops, sorry Uncle, got a bunch more space rocks to avoid. Hold that thought for me!"

" _There's a big, spinning meteor coming in from below you at -80 degrees. The spin is throwing off its trajectory, so as long as you don't dip too low, you should be able to avoid it."_

It was in this manner that Della and Scrooge navigated the cosmic storm. Della mostly kept her attention focused on the physical threats with some extra assistance from Scrooge on her blind spots while Scrooge alerted her to the patches of increasing electrical charge that seemed to be the invisible precursors to the cosmic lightning bolts. The two of them didn't stop talking the entire time, their conversation being a hodgepodge of warnings, safety confirmations, semi-reckless endangerment, scoldings, and half-hearted apologies. That was how the two of them got Della out of the storm together. Granted, in order to make her escape, she'd had to fly a lot farther out into space than she had initially intended, but she was in the tail end of the cosmic storm now and there were no more space rocks to avoid, so the trip back home would be uneventful. She was home free now.

Were it not for that very last bolt…

It snuck up on them and appeared out of nowhere. Della saw the bright flash of light seconds before impact and the cosmic bolt struck the Spear of Selene head on.

" _Della! Della, are you okay?! Answer me!"_

She spun end-over-end with no way of knowing which way was up and her circuit board sparked with rampant electricity. She had no way to fix this, no way to get out, and no secret trick switch to take advantage of. Della recognized in an instant that this was far beyond any other situation she'd ever faced before and the panic set in.

"Everything's down! I can't do anything; I'm stuck! Uncle Scrooge, help me!" she cried with terrified tears streaming down her face.

" _Easy, lass, easy! I'm coming for you, just hold on! What's your estimated trajectory so I know where to look?"_ Scrooge asked desperately.

Della looked out the front view window, but all she saw was thin vertical streaks of white that were the spinning stars. "I-I don't know! Maybe the Asteroid Belt towards Jupiter?! I can't-"

She cut herself off mid-sentence when the video screen suddenly blacked out along with the rest of the lights in the ship. Light came back on the screen a few seconds later in the form of the flashing red words 'TRANSMISSION LOST'.

"-stabilize it…" Della finished in a breathless whisper. She was lost in the empty abyss of space.

Back on Earth, the richest duck in the world stared in stupefied horror at the same flashing red words on the screen and he screamed her name repeatedly into the radio, begging her to answer, begging her to break the silence.

* * *

 _There ya go. Not that anyone asked, but I hope this was decently painful for anyone who read this._

 _(1) Scrooge's birth year is **still** 1867 despite the fact that the story takes place in modern day which means he's 150 years old, but Donald, son of Scrooge's youngest sister, is probably somewhere in his 30s, and that means that if Hortense has **any** chance of being born to Downey and Fergus **and** being young enough to have kids of her own, then there has to be a **much** bigger age difference than the 12 years established in the comics canon._


End file.
